For the vast majority of airplane passengers, travel time is largely filled with passive activities such as reading magazines, newspapers, or watching a movie provided by an airline during a lengthy flight. Individual passengers who wish to participate in video game play have brought their own portable video game units onto the plane, such as the Nintendo Gameboy product. Similarly, passengers who desire to use a data processor during travel have had to use their own portable laptop computer.
At least one airline has provided limited video game services to first class passengers. This system, however, is believed to be a centrally controlled system in which video game programs are executed by a master computer.
The present invention is directed to a video game/communications system for providing any passenger in the airplane an opportunity to actively participate in video game play or to use other data processing/communication services accessible via an onboard distributed processing communications system.
In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a multi-tasking master computer, which preferably stores video game and other application programs on its hard disk, downloads programs which are ultimately downloaded to passengers' seat display units for execution. The master computer, in the exemplary embodiment, is coupled to a set of airplane zone control computers (hereinafter identified as ADBs) which also perform conventional cabin management tasks. The zone control computers receive data from the master control computer and couple data to identified seat controlling processing units (hereinafter identified as SEBs). Each SEB receives data from, and couples data to, a set of unique seat display units which are associated with each seat in the airplane.
In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, seat display units (SDU) are incorporated into the seat back of each passenger seat (except, of course, of the last row of the airplane). Alternatively, the seat display units may be embodied in a rotatable structure installed in a seat arm rest.
The system downloads application software to the seat display units from the master computer. After receipt of a downloading request, the master computer responds by setting up an application program transmission for generating the display menu which appears on each SDU. The initial applications program downloading results in a menu display at every passenger seat which initiated a request. The applications program is then coupled to each SDU for display on its liquid crystal display screen.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the display menu advantageously permits each passenger to select between various operating modes including: movies, games, shopping, survey forms, language selection, communication/data processing services. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, icons are displayed on the screen to permit a passenger to select any one of the different modes of operation. Communication or data processing services permit selection of in-flight phone services, word processing services, and facsimile services.
If a user opts for video game play, then the available game titles and/or descriptions thereof are displayed. The SDU is itself a multiprocessor system which permits a wide range of video game programs to be executed by a video game computer system. It includes interface processors and associated hardware and software which enable high speed downloading operations to be efficiently performed. The master computer initiates a high speed video game program downloading process to enable the user to play the selected video game.
The above and other features and advantages of the invention and the manner of realizing them will become more apparent, and the invention itself will best be understood, from a study of the following detailed description and the appended claims, with reference to the attached drawings showing some exemplary embodiments of the invention.